Te burao (The Hibiscus Tree) (1892): Artwork and History

Te burao (The Hibiscus Tree) (1892) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Completed early in Paul Gauguin’s first Tahitian sojourn, this landscape shows the artist grappling with representing an unfamiliar environment. Rather than documenting botanical species scientifically, Gauguin focused on the artistic potential of their variegated colors, textures, and forms. The human figure in the distance and the dog roaming through fallen branches activate the landscape and establish a sense of scale. This is one of thirty-five works that comprise the Winterbotham Collection. Click here to learn more about the collection.

Object facts

• Title: Te burao (The Hibiscus Tree)
• Date: 1892
• Artist attribution: Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903)
• Place of origin: France
• Medium: Oil on canvas
• Dimensions: 68 × 90.7 cm (26 3/4 × 35 11/16 in.); Framed: 86.4 × 109.3 × 8.9 cm (34 × 43 × 3 1/2 in.)
• Type: Painting
• Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
• Reference number: 1923.308

Collection credit

Joseph Winterbotham Collection

View the original

Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.